Superintendents want grades, testing delayed

Area school superintendents are pleased with most of the accountability changes that Louisiana Superintendent John White will propose to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education next week, but they believe there is still room for improvement.

White will ask BESE to slow down the school and educator consequences associated with the increasing rigor of the Common Core standards including suspending the use of the Value-Added Model of teacher assessment in a committee meeting on Tuesday. The full board will decide on Wednesday.

In an official statement released last week by the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, the group reaffirmed that while it held a strong belief that student achievement needs to be increased, the implementation should be gradual.

“We appreciated the continued dialog we have had with Superintendent White in which some of our recommendations have been embraced and look forward to continued cooperation as we make this important transition,” the release reads.

The association and local superintendents disagree with White’s recommendation that PARCC assessments be implemented in 2014-15 and that districts continue to be ranked by letter grade during the a two-year transition to Common Core standards.

PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) is the proposed assessment for states participating in the Common Core standards to allow those states to compare the progress of their students with those in other states.

“We have grave concerns about districts’ readiness for PARCC in 2015,” the LASS statement reads. “Delay implementation of PARCC.”

“(The) current state assessment should continue to be used while developing an appropriate national assessment in a timely manner,” Richland Superintendent Sheldon Jones said.

White will also recommend schools continue to be assigned letter grades in 2014 and 2015 “using a distribution based on 2012-13 letter grades.”

“Given the fact that we are putting everything else on hold, it would seem reasonable to delay the grades for two years as well,” Cannon said.

“I think this is going to be a problem,” West Carroll Superintendent Kent Davis said. “It’s going to give an adverse outlook on the schools. It’s going to negatively impact our school performance scores.”

Madison Superintendent Lisa Wilmore said her district is already struggling with low letter grades and making every effort to improve.

“I have no opposition to strengthening accountability, but I still think it takes time,” she said. “I think it would help our district to give us an opportunity to track our kids before he assigns a letter grade. It’s bad for morale within the district.”

“I’m very pleased that Mr. White has listened to the recommendations of educators from across the state, but I wish he would consider these too,” Ouachita Superintendent Bob Webber said. “Why would you want to assign letter grades when we are still not sure what we are teaching or what we are testing?”